The life of a physicist can be troubling, at times, as the universe doesn't always play well with others.

But even the universe can't break a true promise.

With tears in her eyes, Tara gathered the device in her arms, positioned on the bridge's railing, and prepared to jump.

"Just do one thing for me... please. Survive."

And she jumped. We rushed towards the railing and looked down just in time to see her enter the water. Carol was trying to say something but couldn't seem to get the words to come out. I... I just watched. Suddenly, the water began to glow brilliantly blue, and the water nearby suddenly began rushing towards it as if to fill a void.

She was gone.

======

3 years later...

Carol woke with a start. I was just getting out of the shower and preparing to get dressed and head to work.

"Another nightmare?" I asked.

"Yes. I just... that night..." she said, starting to tear up slightly.

I sat down next to her on the bed, and gave her a tight hug. "She wouldn't want you to be moving on like this, honey. I know you really aren't fond of them but I still think you should talk to one of the counselors at the base. They have clearance to know about it and they were a great help to me."

"I know, it's... there's just so much stuff that happened with her while you were away that I really don't think I can talk about." she said.

I gave her a gentle kiss. "Honey, just keep thinking about it. I don't like seeing you make yourself suffer like this. She had a profound impact on both our lives, but she's gone now, and I really think she would rather see us happy than mourning her forever."

I moved to cup her face. "I tell you what, why don't we go to dinner tonight, at Sam's. You always love their cake. And I think they have some fresh fish in."

She gave a little smile at that. "You're right, maybe I'll get 2 pieces of cake."

"That's my girl. I still don't know why you love that cake so much, but I'm still glad that you love me more." I said.

She gave a little laugh. And stuck out her tongue at me like a kid. "The judge said I couldn't marry the cake."

I pantomimed being stuck as if by a large stick. "Ouch. Guess I'll have to buy the judge a beer one of these days. Are you going to be okay?"

She gave herself a little shake and looked me in the eyes. "I'll be fine. Now get moving so you aren't late getting to the base. You know how Thompson gets when you're late."

"Alright, I'll get going, just don't forget to make yourself some breakfast today. You're looking a little pale." I said.

***

As I drove past the security checkpoint and into the main base, I once again had a moment of wonder at the fact that I worked inside a mountain. It's one of those wonders of hard work and natural technology that still impressed me to this day. So many tons of rock removed just to put a group of buildings within.

I pulled in to my parking space and started walking towards the elevator. I reached into my pocket and pulled out today's TLD (Thermoluminescent dosimeter) and attached it to my jacket. Not one single radiation event since the project started, but it was always wise to be safe.

I stepped into the elevator and found Brett Thompson waiting for me. "Cutting it a little close, aren't we Tedd?"

I gave a little sigh. "The wife again, Thompson, she's still having the nightmares."

"Have you tried suggesting therapy again?"

"I did just this morning. I'm not going to force her, though, that really wouldn't help anything and might strain the marriage. But I'll be taking her out to eat tonight." I said.

Thompson smiled. "Tell you what, if today's test goes right, you tell Sammy to give you guys a bottle of something old, on me."

"Well, then, I better make sure it goes flawlessly. Sam has some really old stuff." I laughed.

The elevator reached the bottom of the facility and opened up into a large chamber filled with some of the most advanced atomic technology on the planet. Parts of it designed by myself, as well. The observation area was filled with people today. If this test works, we'll have changed the world, and these people will witness history.

The technicians were just finishing up running the final series of diagnostics on the equipment. I've always admired the Department of Defense's punctuality and repeated checking before a test. The lead technician on duty walked over and handed me a clipboard to sign.

"Everything ready to go?" I asked.

"If it's not ready now sir, it never will be." he said.

I walked over to a small podium that had been installed for today and turned on the microphone.

"Today, we are gathered here to attempt something which as recently as 4 years ago would have been considered absolutely impossible. As you are all aware, after your heads finished swimming from the thick stack of disclosure forms, there was an event approximately 3 years ago which caused quite a stir in the atomic sciences. I, myself, was actually quite close to the epicenter of the event, which occurred at Star City West Bridge. As I stated in my reports, we were on the end of the bridge, stuck in traffic, trying to cross over, when suddenly a large bluish light was reported from the waters of Carter River. After the light subsided there were reports of the water rushing towards the light source, as though all the water in it's area had... well, vanished. We can't accurately vouch for the truth of these reports, but we do know that there was some disturbance in the flow of the river briefly."

"At the very same instant that event occurred, all of the neutrino detectors on the planet suddenly flared up, causing panic at ever detector, with the personnel on duty assuming their detectors had, unbeknownst to them, simultaneously all failed. But we later learned that all of these detectors were in fact working flawlessly, and something had created a large stream of neutrinos and other exotic particles. Tracking of the origin, at every single station, intersected at the Carter River site. We have since determined that the blue glow reported was quite likely a large source of Cherenkov radiation. For those unfamiliar with Cherenkov radiation, it is the effect that causes pool-style nuclear reactors to glow blue. Since the speed of light in water is only about 3/4ths the speed of light in a vacuum, the effect when particles exceed the speed of light in water creates what could, in a way, be considered something of a 'photonic boom', which because of the structure of water, ends up being emitted at a wavelength in the visible spectrum, a nice blue color."

"Now, we still don't know the cause of the Carter River incident, but a pair of brilliant french physicists speculated that the neutrinos we detected were the result of a tachyon burst, tachyons are, up until recently, purely theoretical particles which would be able to travel *faster* than the speed of light, in a vacuum. There have been all sorts of wild theories as to what tachyons could do, including time travel, wormholes, and even more strange possibilities. The tachyons, through a process we still don't understand, appear to create a form of Cherenkov radiation which is expressed as neutrinos. We've taken to calling this process 'Cherenkov Resonance' and have spent a good deal of time working towards controlling it. We believe we have that ready today."

"As some say about science, once we know something is possible, it is only a matter of time before we can use it. Today, we are going to be testing a device we have named 'Tachyon Resonance Imaging and Information Propagation' or TRIIP for short. We've set up stations around the world, which, if this test is successful, will send a string of numbers back using a smaller form of the same experiment. If the process works, the very instant we start the machine, we should have the results from all the stations. We're talking about the possibility of *instant* communication over long distances. However, in the interest of speedy information, I'm going to stop my speech here, and ask you all to please wear your safety goggles. Small scale tests have been rather bright."

I turned off the microphone, and put on my own goggles. The countdown began. You could feel the tension rising off everyone in the room, or possibly the sudden ignition of several extremely power-hungry bits of technology suddenly activating. The countdown reached 0.

Inside the test chamber a small, but very bright point began to form. After several seconds, the light stabilized, and a computer voice stated "Initiating reaction in 5 seconds."

The seconds went by, and there was suddenly a large flash. And then it went dark. The light was gone.

"Did it work?" I asked.

"Processing..." And then extremely long series of numbers began to appear on the screen.

"Verification complete. Data transmission completed at 100%." The room erupted. They had smashed the information barrier. Real-time communication across vast distances was now possible.

And I was going to find the oldest bottle Sam had tonight.

======

2 years later...

The phone was ringing. I've never much liked being awoken by the phone, never seemed to be something I wanted to hear. I sat up, and answered the phone. I talked for a few moments and hung up. I started to get out of bed to rush and get dressed.

Carol had apparently been awakened by me. "Is there a problem, baby?"

"Uhh... yeah... you could say that. DoD is sending a large crew here to come get me and take me to the lab. Someone has attacked it and... the experiment can't be turned off. They need me to try and shut it down before something happens. And Thompson is dead." I said.

She looked stunned for a moment, and started crying, very hard. I finished buckling my pants and came over to hold her. "Don't worry honey, I'll be fine, they've cleared out all the attackers, and one apparently was caught in my experiment and vanished. There is no safer place I could be."

She tried
to speak. "I'm... I... I'm afraid I'm going to lose you. It's going to happen... I know it."

I caressed her hair. "Honey... I promise you, no matter what, under any circumstance, I will come back to you. Not a single power in the universe can stop me. Do you hear me?"

She sniffled a little, then seemed to regain her composure a bit as she got out of bed and retrieved her fire box from underneath. She opened it up and pulled out a small envelope.

She handed it to me and said: "Here, you're going to need this."

I took the envelope and opened it. It was a series of equations, and some settings for... for my equipment.

"Tara gave that to me. She said you would need that tonight. She said that the night Thompson died was the night to give it to you."

"But how could she know he was going to die? I don't understand, Carol, there's no way anyone could have this type of information, I haven't even told you, as much as it breaks my heart, any of the details of what I've been doing."

She rubbed away some tears. "She said it was something to do with tachyons or something. You know I've never really had a head for the physics, math was always my strong suit. But she knew this was going to happen."

I tried to wrap my head around this. "When did she give this to you?"

"About 2 weeks before..."

"Before what?"

"Before she... she died. She knew that was going to happen too."

I was even more confused now. "Carol, I have to finish getting dressed, I think they're just about here, but when I get back, you and I are going to have a talk about all of this."

She just sat back onto the bed crying. I gave her a kiss on the head, put my jacket on, and walked out the door just in time for my ride to arrive.

As we approached the elevator one of the guards handed me some goggles. "Tedd, it's active, and we can't shut it off, you're the only one we know that might be able to find a way. Even cutting the power hasn't worked, it seems to be drawing it's own."

The elevator opened and I went right to work, I tried altering programs, I tried altering targetting settings and tried siphoning power away, but nothing worked, I was completely bewildered when the security commander approached me.

"Sir, we need you to see this. The person who vanished into the light seemed to be holding a small object, about a cubic foot or so in size. We think it looks sort of like a modified version of the test chamber."

He handed me a tablet with the video playing, and paused it at a point where the object was clear.

Oh god. I've seen that before.

The night Tara died.

I looked up at the security officer. "If I said that I wouldn't be surprised if the DoD had tried to weaponize my experiment, what would your reaction be?"

"I'm pretty sure they'd try to weaponize any new technology."

"I think that may be a tachyon bomb. We may have a problem, and I still don't know how to fix this damned equipment!" I slammed my fist into the counter.

"Sir, I have to report this to my superiors."

"Go on, I'll stay here, keep working on this." As he left, I sighed heavily and stuck my hands in my pockets. I felt a piece of paper.

It was the note from the envelope.

It couldn't be, could it? I pulled it out and stared. The equations seemed to make sense, and the settings were possible. I had tried everything else I could think of. 3 hours of effort and no results, what did I have to lose. If this continued in runaway mode it could destroy the whole mountain.

I ran between pieces of equipment, making the changes, and modified the equations in the programming. It was now or die. I activated the changes.

***

The light grew, everything in the room was just white light. And it vanished. Along with most of the room.

======

Unknown

I began to wake up. I felt wrong. I felt sore. But beyond feeling sore I felt wrong. My body just didn't seem right. I opened my eyes and began to look around. I seemed to be in a hospital room. I looked out the window, and realized it looked like the Star City skyline. But something was wrong there, too. The building across the street. That building had been torn down years ago.

I shook my head, hoping to clear some of the cobwebs, and caught something. My chest, it didn't look right, the sheets were laying on me in such a way as to make it look like I had breasts. That didn't make any sense.

Just then a nurse walked in. "Oh! You're awake!"

She darted out and shouted for a doctor.

I looked at my body a bit closer. It seemed smaller, thinner, less wide. Sort of like a girl, actually.

The doctor walked in. "Hello! Glad to see you awake, we were worried, you've been in a coma for 2 weeks. First thing I want to do... what's your name?"

I tried to speak, it came out as a bit of a croak, so I swallowed hard and tried again. "Can... can I see a mirror?" The voice sounded very familiar, but it shouldn't have been coming from me.

The doctor waved to the nurse, and she opened a closet opposite the bed with a mirror on the inside. "Now, we've been hoping to find out what your name is for 2 weeks, and it's much friendlier to call my patients by name."

I looked in the mirror. That... that couldn't be.

It wasn't possible.

"I" "I'm... Tara!" And then I passed out.